U.S. President Joe Biden has said he is “convinced” Russian President Vladimir Putin has made the decision to invade Ukraine in the coming week but that he still held out hope a diplomatic solution could be reached.
“As of this moment, I am convinced he has made the decision” to invade Ukraine, Biden told a news conference at the White House on February 18 following a 45-minute conference call with European counterparts.
Biden said Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on February 24 in Europe in an effort to find a compromise that will prevent war.
“If Russia takes military action before that date, it would be clear that they have slammed the door shut on diplomacy. They will have chosen war and they will pay a steep price for doing so,” Biden said.
Russia has denied it plans to invade Ukraine and has accused the United States of “hysteria.”
The U.S. president’s ominous comments came as the situation in eastern Ukraine, where Kremlin-backed separatists are fighting government forces, appeared to deteriorate.
The separatists who control parts of two regions in eastern Ukraine began evacuating citizens to Russia earlier in the day. Putin ordered his Emergency Situations Ministry to Rostov-on-Don, a city in southwest Russia near the border with Ukraine, to set up accommodation for the evacuees.
Western officials have been warning that Moscow is seeking to create a pretext in eastern Ukraine to invade its neighbor.
Biden reiterated that idea during the press conference, saying that Russia was trying to “bait” Ukraine into a war in order to justify an invasion. He said the Kremlin’s claims that Ukraine plans to attack the two regions at a time when Russia has 150,000 troops on its border “defies basic logic.”
‘Big Provocation’
In a statement issued on February 18, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry accused Russia of increasing the shelling of government-controlled territories, calling it a provocation.